Bumpa, a social commerce startup in Nigeria, has raised $4 million in a seed round, which was led by Base10 Partners and included Plug & Play Ventures, SHL Capital, Magic Fund, Jedar Capital, DFS Labs, FirstCheck Africa Angel Program, E62 Ventures, Club 14, and Fast Forward Ventures.
A rapidly expanding industry is social commerce, particularly on the continent of Africa. Africans use social media in excess of 384 million times, and 281 million of them shop online. According to the Q1 2022 Social Commerce Survey, the market is expected to grow by 70.3% annually to reach US$8 billion in 2022 and experience a compound annual growth rate of 55.2% between 2022 and 2028. Nigerian social commerce company Bumpa is one startup benefiting from the social commerce boom.
Must Read: Farmerline Raises An Additional $1.5 Million
Bumpa was established in 2021 by Kelvin Umechukwu and Adetunji Opayele after they collaborated on the web hosting firm HostCabal. Bumpa initially started out by helping businesses manage inventory, engage their customers, and record sales. But now, they want to go a step further and help these small businesses connect everything.
According to the co-founder and CEO of Bumpa Kelvin Umechukwu, the platform is used by more than 50,000 small businesses. Additionally, Umechukwu disclosed that these companies have since recorded over 200,000 orders and transacted $20 million worth of gross merchandise. The user who crossed 10,000 orders on Bumpa and increased from 15 orders per week to 200 orders per week was his proudest success with Bumpa, he continued.
Bumpa operates on a commission and subscription basis. After integrating with Meta in August, the startup began charging commissions on each online transaction and launched a subscription product. Users can continue to use Bumpa for free, but they are limited to 25 products and 50 orders per month.
Must Read: Numida, a Ugandan Fintech, Raises $12.3 Million
In recent times, there has been a lot of activity in the social commerce startup space in Nigeria, with fintechs like Paystack and Flutterwave launching storefronts for small businesses and startups like Catlog and Simpu all providing solutions for SMEs that want to sell their products online. According to Umechukwu, Bumpa’s competitive advantage stems from its emphasis on retail automation and data and inventory optimization for its clients. He went on to say that Bumpa’s integration with Meta in August, as well as an upcoming integration with Google Business in November, will help set it apart from the competition.